Study: MP3 Sharing Not Serious Threat To CD Sales 704
pkaral writes "The two distinguished gentlemen Strumpf and Oberholzer-Gee have most likely made RIAA executives choke on their lunches. Those two economists at Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill have done the research and the math on how much CD sales are actually hurt by P2P sharing. The answer: A whopping one CD per 5,000 files downloaded. Needless to say, RIAA are already trying to discredit the study."
It is not about sales but control (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I expect... (Score:5, Interesting)
TiVo's already proven that people will watch ads even with the 30 second skip enabled, you just have to get the viewer's attention during the 2 seconds they see the ad before hitting the skip.
Earth to RIAA: (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Its still piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
no progress (Score:2, Interesting)
My issue with the situation is when the RIAA going to actually perform their own study and see for themselves that downloaders aren't pilfering from their pockets? I want the RIAA to prove to me that mp3 downloading is hurting CD sales.
They need to change. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Its still piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
I was looking at my old portable stereo with two tape decks, and realized that the 2nd deck didn't even have a play button. All it had was record, to record from the first tape deck
So, let's think about this -- in the early 80's Sony was making devices whose sole purpose was to record music from other mediums. I will tell you 99% of the time I used that deck to record a tape I had borrowed
The music industry managed to survive a time when they were making devices to copy music (and I'll tell you right now, 10th generation analog copies did not bother me).
A 5th or so generation tape introduced me to what became one of my favourite bands for a long time ... The Violent Femmes. I ended up buying every one of their tapes, then their CD's hen it turned into that.
Nothing has changed in the last 25 years, other than the fact that the recording industry is trying to find excuses to generate revenue through a blanket tax.
Re:Its still piracy? (Score:1, Interesting)
This is a flawed comparison. It has always been illegal to share/distribute/give-away-copies-of (whatever you want to call it) copyrighted works without the express permission of the copyright holder. It doesn't matter whether one records from radio, satellite, or from the Internet. One can make a copy for oneself only.
This isn't new or sudden. Look back through the last 30 years of copyright law.
Let the RIAA hang themselves... (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course the proposal above presents us with two further, additional questions: How brave are we feeling today? and would the RIAA admit they were incorrect even if they were?
Re:I expect... (Score:5, Interesting)
The countermeasure would have to be fairly instant in order to compete with the official version because who would want to wait?
Eventually, the banner would manifest like it does during an NFL game, by "tilting" and stretching the media to make room for the banner in different places. Or, just by overlaying the banner directly on the media.
Basically, anyone who does us a favor and strips out the banner is actually doing harm because eventually the banner will have to appear in more and more inconvenient places.
Makes more sense (Score:2, Interesting)
I understand how P2P can hurt niche artists. Record stores don't like to stock things that move slowly. In a way, P2P relieves them of that responsibility. It's good for the stores, only the traditional system gets hurt. Let's hope that niche artists have loyal fans that can support them in spite of this problem.
Re:I expect... (Score:4, Interesting)
But don't think this legitimizes copyrighted work sharing. It's still wrong, folks. The fact that it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as the RIAA would have us believe doesn't make it any righter.
Curious... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hilarious. (Score:2, Interesting)
You know, I have been looking for that independant, unbiased, non-RIAA supported research study that proves that there is a link between P2P and shrinking record sales but no luck so far.
I can point to many "industry supported" (companies that work for the RIAA-companies) studies but not one research study from a reputable university or scientist.
So please link to those studies, or shut the fuck up AC.
o sweet sweet irony! (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, what if most of the execs of the RIAA are graduates of Yale or Princeton? (ivy league rivalry).
Anyways, this is something I've been saying for years. Even before file-sharing, I rarely bought any CD's, mainly because of the crappy schtuff out there and because of the lack of funds. It's just that both reasons are even stronger now (thx enron/dotcom bust/etc.).
Re:Its still piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but the legal definitions are DIFFERENT... (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, contrary to what all the business people have been saying about "intellectual" property, it's not property per se- it's not a tangible thing. Making copies doesn't take the original item away from the owner. It does lower the amount of money they might see, but it does not directly take money out of their hands, nor does it deprive the holder of the so-called property.
Stealing is the taking of something in a manner that directly deprives someone of the thing taken. There's legal terms for this- theft and larceny come immediately to mind.
Infringement is not stealing in any legal sense of the concept- you can apply less than common dictionary definitions for the term or moral arguments to the mix, but you'd still be wrong because there IS a distinction for the whole thing all the same.
RIAA and this study don't necessarily disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I expect... (Score:3, Interesting)
No they wouldn't. They could do it the same way they do now...manually editing the video to remove the banner, or build a utility to do the edit automatically but the setup and distribution is done manually. There are people willing to do the work and make it available. It would take time, but it's the difference between watching something immediately with annoying ads that you will throw away after, and waiting for the ad-free version that you want to keep in your collection. That is what they want to prevent. If you don't believe me, try skipping the commercials on a DVD with a brand-name DVD player....
Re:I expect... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit. TiVO has only "proven" that people will watch particularly appealing ads. once or twice.
But that misses the point--as anybody who knows anything about advertising will tell you, the "coolness" factor of an ad often is only a minor role in its effectiveness. i could probably watch that doritos commercial with that girl at the laundromat all day, but i still don't buy doritos. rather, factors such as repitition and subconscious awareness building are more important.
You make the classic slashdot mistake though: ignoring issues of scale. Beause people watch commercials without TiVo, and because some people watch some commercials without TiVo, then tivo has no effect on commercials. Bullshit. With TiVo and the 30 second skip feature, fewer commercials are seen. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that's the truth.
Re:Its still piracy (Score:1, Interesting)
What an odd semantic argument. Piracy, classically, is defined as stealing in a seaborne context.
In modern times, it's called intelectual property theft, and theft is synonymous with stealing.
it's called infingement,
Maybe, well with an "r" anyway. But what is the end result? Infringement allows the consumption of an entity without compensation to the owner. Stealing? Uh huh.
escape the common misconceptions
Escape the rationalization.
Re:Embrace, not extinguish (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:MP3 Sharing is Still Illegal!! (Score:3, Interesting)
This was in direct contention to the parent's statement, that is all.
Re:downloading copyrighted music is Theft (Score:4, Interesting)
Electricity is a product, it is electrons traveling down the wire, work on your car is a service performed.
Taking a cd from a record store is taking an actual product. You copying a file from me is NOT stealing a PRODUCT at all, what if you copied the exact clothes I am currently wearing? Is that considered theft? What about copying the paint scheme off my custom van, looking at my custom made porch swing and making your own the same way, how about getting the same exact hair cut as me? These are examples of intellectual property and may or may not be covered under copyright, trademark, patent or trade secret laws, copying them is a copyright violation. You can not take or steal away intellectual property from someone but it may be possible to make unauthorized copies of it.
Steal an audio cd from Walmart and get caught, potential for a small fine. Download or upload the same cd's contents to someone online, face up to $150,000 fine per song. Do the potential fines appear to be in relation to the crime commited?
Perception is Reality (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm no huge fan of the RIAA, but I love music more than I hate the RIAA, and anything that can be done to increase the quality of the current state of music is a positive thing, IMHO. It was hard enough for musicians to make money before this controversy, thanks to the record companies. Now they are less likely than ever to part with control of the funds generated by the music industry, it seems to me.
Re:Its still piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Alexander Pope wrote a very long poem, called "the rape of the lock". It's about a young woman's suitor trying to take a lock of her hair. He's not even a stalker or a thief, as this is all an elaborate game to impress her with how much trouble he will go to to woo her, and she isn't averse to being wooed, just enjoying the attention. Words can be stretched, sometimes a whole lot.
Here's a few reasons why I'd suggest you reconsider useing words such as stealing for copyright infringment.
1. All theft is criminal. Once, all copyright infringement was always a matter for civil courts only, and even now, only some forms are criminallized, since the late 90's. Was the US wrong for over 200 years before that, and still half wrong?
2. In the US, all infringment is under federal law. The Supreme court has ruled that the 50 states have no right to make or interpret copyright law. If infringment=theft, the Supreme's reasoning on this would limit the rights of the states to have their own laws on theft as well, or the states would need to insist they have te right to pass their own laws on infringment, so that they did not lose the authority to prosecute theft (and possibly other crimes - imagine if a state couldn't prosecute a man for murder, if he shot someone who was engaged in interstate trucking at the time in that state).
3. Federal law carefully puts infringment under a completely different title than all federal laws regarding theft. Titles are broad categories of law, intended to keep very different areas seperate. Appellate courts frequently compare one law to another, if both are under the same title, (for example if a cruel and unusual punishment defense is invoked) but are much more reluctant to compare across titles.
4. The US signed a treaty called Berne. It relates to civil violation of infringment, and by signing it we have agreed with 181 other nations that infringment is primarily a tort matter, as Berne stresses certain parts concern civil law only and have no authority to regulate the criminal laws of the signing nations, and yet bringing the US into compliance with Berne is cited as the base for much of this new legislation since then.
So the reason to call it not theft is, your legislators say it's not theft, the highest court in the land says it's not theft, just about everyone else in the world's governments says its not theft, except North Korea and the People's republic of Yemin and a few similar nations.
Now if you live somewhere besides the United States, the of course only some of these issues apply to you.
WHY do they discredit these reports? (Score:5, Interesting)
What if the record companies actually considered for a second, that there was a possibility that this report was actually right! Then the only possible result could be to increase their profits! By just dismissing it as rubbish, they're harming themselves more than anyone else.
Re:P2P doens't affect CD sales? DUMBEST MEME (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I expect... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I expect... (Score:3, Interesting)
Overpriced (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I expect... (Score:2, Interesting)
Simply monitor which commercials a viewer skips, and treat that as a "thumbs down". Use this information to customize the commercial feed to advertise products that the viewer is actually interested in.
You're right, giving the viewer control *does* mean that fewer commecials are seen. But when the viewer wouldn't buy the product anyway, does it make any sense to waste advertising time trying to sell them on it? Speaking as a guy in his twenties, I can guarantee you that advertising dollars would be better spent showing me a movie trailer than making me sit through a tampon commercial.
Re:RIAA vs GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Not morally equivalent, legally equivalent. One could be morally opposed to paying for either music or software and obey the GPL while violating music copyright. This would not be an inconsistent moral position. Saying one must respect music copyrights if one respects the GPL is like saying I can't smoke pot if I'm in favor of prescription drugs remaining prescription-only.
Re:I expect... (Score:3, Interesting)
You raise an excellent point, and I do still buy singles, but I think that only serves to emphasize the fact that singles today are not the same as the singles of yesterday.
I put the line about the Chuck Berry 45's in there because I often see allusions to singles in that format. I gather (I wasn't around) that the intent of those singles was to make popular songs available to people who didn't want to buy (or couldn't afford) the full album, and to further the public's familiarity with the artist in question. Today, it seems that most people I talk to buy only the singles of artists that we are already familiar with. You'll buy Seal singles for the remixes and I'll spend $7.00 to hear Tori Amos covering a Tom Waits song, but most people aren't using singles to become familiar with new music.
That function has largely been supplanted by P2P.
I don't listen to the radio, so I've never actually heard the Outkast song "Hey, Ya", but I would like to. I would be willing to go down to Hastings and drop 3 bones on the single, but the last few times I've tried that approach it turned into a nightmare. In the end, I'll wind up checking it out on the net. Outkast's record company not only won't get my three bucks, they'll spend $6 prosecuting the person who made it available to me and $2 more publicizing their repudiation of the parent story.
The Dalai Llama
willing to pay a fair price, like most music listeners...
Re:Why should the RIAA be different? (Score:3, Interesting)
The truth is, that "the leftist elite", more often than not are not the people who are saying that people shouldn't have responsibilty for their actions.
Who is it then?
It's the corporate backers who push the line that profits count more than people, and that anything you do to that end is fine and dandy.
It's the churches that think that bad behaviour can be washed away through faith, instead of..oh you know..being a good person?
That whole idea is just a big lie presented to hide the real culprits.
What to do about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
weird logic (Score:2, Interesting)
What P2P Does Best (Score:4, Interesting)
It re-ignites/increses an interest in music overall more than any other one thing.
If you can't understand why that's a good thing, then I probably can't explain it to you any better.
Re:I expect... (Score:3, Interesting)
-
Many artists battle with the record companies on which songs make their records. As an artist, I wouldn't want "market demand" determining the makeup of my album.
I can understand the Artist wanting control of what goes on the album, but consider the marketing advantage you'd have for album sales if all the tracks were chosen because they were quite popular. One of the biggest complaints consumers have with the current system is that you pay nearly $20 for a CD with 1, maybe 2 songs on it you like, and more often than not the rest aren't worth listening to. (Not just bad, beyond bad.) Personally I doubt the artists wanted the CD that way either, unless they really hate their audience and enjoy subjecting them to crap. (Granted a few of those may be songs the artist thinks are really good, but their audience don't. The odds are against 10+ of them being that way though.)On the other hand, "artists" like P. Diddy or Britney Spears might prefer it that way.
Of course it should be noted that the recording industry killed off the singles market themselves, lusting after the higher profits of a whole CD. Not to mention that from what I hear about "standard" recording contracts, the artist is lucky to break even on CD sales through retail, and it's not unheard of that the recording company's creative accounting will leave the artist OWING money. There's not much incentive for artists to really try to change this since they mostly only make money on concerts and stuff sold at concerts. The recording companies seem to have become so intoxicated with greed that I doubt they'll ever try to change this either.
If iTunes has proven anything it's that a singles market still exists. If the recording industry started selling CD singles of hits, they'd probably be mightily surprised to find people would buy them and they'd make money on it. There's still a LOT of people out there who either have no Internet access (or computer even) but still would love to get a copy of their favorite tracks.
Personally I got so disgusted with the whole thing I stopped listening to/buying/downloading/etc. any US music about 5 years ago.
Re:I expect... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, actually I am in advertising so perhaps I add some thoughts to this. The coolness factor is JUST as important as the awareness building. You see, an ad can be repeated as many times as the advertiser has dollars for, but if it is a shit ad, and nobody is interested in it, you start having people just block it out. This has happened with banner ads. People have started to just mentally block out the space of a page where banner ads appear. While technically it counts as an ad impression, realistically it means one less person seeing the ad.
So while it is important to build in subconscious brand awareness and repetition does indeed play an important role in that, the coolness factor is what gets people to watch the ad every time it is repeated.
Re:I expect... (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea of an "album" is an artifical construct due to the technology introduced by the LP record. Until then, all records had to be under 3 minutes. Some of the greatest US songwriters wrote songs in that format (eg. Ellington, Gershwin etc).
With digital music, the idea of the "album" is dead. A piece of music and be 5 minutes or three weeks long. It's up to the artist.
On the other hand songs by their nature (i.e. short legth) are meant to be mixed and matched at the will of the listener.
If artists do not like that, they can get another job.
Don't confuse me with facts... (Score:3, Interesting)
Clearly that is not the case.
If we follow the smoke back to the likliest fire, we find men, who are alpha dominant types, used to controlling and having their way, confronted by change, decentralization, a loss of control, and shrinking sales. The obvious nknee jerk response is to get complete control. Get draconian. Make sure that nobody anywhere, hears a sound, unless somebody somewhere is paying them for it. It's the natural place powerful men tend to go, when confronted with loosing power and control. Men in charge detest the idea on not having dominion.
The problem is, they never did... it's all a personal illusion. The cure is worse than the disease. The damage done to the local populace is usually devastating, and in the end, the big guy fall hated and reviled as a despot.
Knowing it's not the common way alpha types rule, we need to start teaching our children about dancing with the chaos... embracing change, and using it to succeed. Our natural inclination to resist the flow of nature, when it suits us, tends to provide the lesson, time and again, that nature is bigger and will just run flat over you.
Considering how unpleasant it is to learn this lesson, one would think we'd have to learn it less often?
Genda "May you live in interesting times...
May you receive everything you ask for...
May you come to the attention of your superiors..."
-- An ancient Chinese curse
Serious answer (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm referring to the majority mindset--the one reflected by the number of +4/+5 mods and the headlines that the editors post. You seriously disagree that it isn't the majority mindset?
Slashdot is a large number of people (several hundred thousand if user ID numbers are to be believed). These people cross the spectrum. Some are against any copyright at all. Some think copyright is a perfect and should be expanded in power. Some hold more moderate positions. Some even hold more nuianced positions that appear contradictory on the surface. This diverse population posts the comments you read and submit the articles that the editor's post. End result: a huge pile of amazingly inconsistent content with little to no pattern to the belief system. All nice and clear?
So disregard my opinion if it doesn't apply to you--nice and clear?
Of course, I suspect you're just looking for an opportunity to troll.
I don't doubt you'd "suspect" that. The fact that my post went from +5 to +1 in 10 minutes doesn't surprise me--clearly I ticked off the majority mindset who disagreed with me, and instead of replying as you did, modded me down. Which is, of course, fascism.
The situation isn't new, and it's been explained. Repeatedly. Furthermore, the post you replied to doesn't make any claims about the GPL or copyright!
It was an example of the double-standard that Slashdot holds due to its views on the RIAA. Slashdot editors will post pro-piracy articles and claim they increase sales, thereby supporting copyright infringement. In the next breath, they will post an article criticizing some inane violation of the GPL. How can one expect people to follow one copyright scheme if they profess not following another? It was merely a thought-provoking opinion. Believe it or not, conversations sometimes go on tangents.
Re:Serious question for Slashdotters (Score:4, Interesting)
Riiight. Tell us another, RIAA butt-monkey. The artist getting paid! How fucking funny is that?
And how much does the artist get per CD? I do believe that Ani DiFranco has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the RIAA does nothing but screw both artist and customer, then bend them over again for a good reaming via bought-and-paid-for congressmen.
I could pay $8 for a CD direct from the artist, and even if you take off $2 for shipping and production (vastly overstated, but for you we'll pretend that's the actual cost) the average artist will still earn SIX TIMES what they get paid under the RIAA aegis.
Fuck the RIAA and it's apologists. The middleman isn't worth the price anymore. We can sample the artist's work direct (P2P, wouldn't you know) and buy if we like. And not buy if we don't.
Guess that business model is too complex for folks like you to parse. But in your world everyone's a thief...no doubt a reflection of your own character.
Max